What Is the Difference between Pandemic and Endemic?

Epidemiologist Ellie Murray explains how a pandemic becomes an endemic, what that means, and if we’ll ever be able to stop thinking about COVID

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Pandemic vs. Endemic

What Is the Difference between Pandemic and Endemic?

BU epidemiologist Ellie Murray explains how a pandemic becomes an endemic, what that means, and if we’ll ever be able to stop thinking about COVID

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What Is the Difference between Pandemic and Endemic?

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Pandemic vs. Endemic

What Is the Difference between Pandemic and Endemic?

February 9, 2022
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Before leaving the house, we’ve all gotten used to double-checking that we have four essential items: phone, keys, wallet, mask. After two exhausting years of living in a pandemic, grabbing a mask (or two) on the way out the door has become a routine part of our mental checklist. 

But at this point in the pandemic, many people are wondering if it’s safe to ditch mask-wearing in schools, offices, and other indoor places, or if COVID-19 will ever fade away. According to BU epidemiologist Ellie Murray, the answer is complicated—and very much depends on the actions we take collectively. Even if COVID-19 transitions from a pandemic to an endemic disease—where infections occur in seasonal or predictable cycles, like the flu—that does not necessarily mean we’ll be mask-free or that vaccinations will no longer be needed.

To move from a pandemic to endemic, says Murray, a BU School of Public Health assistant professor of epidemiology, the world needs “to have some predictable sense of where that disease is going to go next.” COVID-19, she says, will likely remain prevalent for the foreseeable future, but we have the public health tools—like testing and masking—to continually monitor and manage it.

In this video, Murray explains the difference between pandemic and endemic, how we might learn to live with COVID-19 in the future, and why she sees reason to be optimistic.

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  • Devin Hahn

    Senior Video Producer

    Devin Hahn

    Devin Hahn creates video content for BU Today, Bostonia online, and The Brink. He is a producer, a cameraman, an editor, and, under duress, a writer. Profile

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There are 2 comments on What Is the Difference between Pandemic and Endemic?

  1. Internal polling in the Democratic party is so bad that all of the sudden The Atlantic, CNN, and BU start talking about ending restriction! Election year replaces “science”!

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  2. So, even with recent studies showing the typical cloth mask doesn’t do all that much, masking is still being recommended? N95’s well fitted help. Wearing them all of the time certainly doesn’t help people with skin conditions like rosacea, for likely little benefit. And in the beginning, I recall Fauci saying that if you touch the masks, you get the virus you are preventing on your hands and then if you touch your face, you get sick? That made the masking in restaurants seem pretty ludicrous where people are putting them off and on. The same is true for classrooms. A really interesting study would be to see how many times in a day someone touches their mask without washing their hands or at least using sanitizer.

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